Inspiration

Just quickly …

How AMAZING is this house? I mean, not the actual house per se, but the way this family has got it all together. Colour makes me so happy.

If I was to uncover a fourth dimension, where I was Swedish, I would like to be the Swedish family you just clicked on. Every single person in it. But more than anything, I’d want to steal all their stuff.

AND HERE FOLLOWS AN ENTIRELY UNRELATED ASIDE ABOUT HOW I WAS ALMOST MISTAKEN FOR A SWEDISH PERSON. OR AT LEAST VAGUELY SCANDINAVIAN:

When I was in living in London, some random dude at a party asked if I was Finnish/Japanese and, while I was bamboozling at that one and how he came to such conclusions, could he take my photo for a magazine, please?

It never got published.

What a cad.

But before you ask, yes, I was wearing clothes. That’s why I was supposedly being photographed. For the clothes. Not my hot bod. I had to add this bit in, as I re-read it and it sounded like the plot of a bad telemovie. “When I was taken advantage of by a modelling scout at the naive age of 29 and 3/4″.

Do you like how I milk these days of yore, when I’d often (by which I mean rarely) get compliments in the street? Incidentally, at some fancy local dinner thing I was at last week, I did have a drunk person comment that I looked “trennnnny!” and “elegannNNN!”. And I thought that was total props. Even though I was worried he was going to spew in front of the town mayor.

Scatterbrainia the beautiful

There is absolutely no doubt in this world that Tim and I are scatterbrains. It’s just the way we are, the probable reason we hooked up, and the way we will probably die — though hopefully not with a Darwin Award nomination (to go).

In full acknowledgement of this, we probably should join a self-help group, Scatterbrains Anonymous (if there was one).

I can picture us now, hunkered down in a former Scout hall with other Scatterfolk in a non-threatening circle of chairs. Actually, because we’re Scatterfolk, it would be a billowing lemniscate (by which I mean infinity symbol) of chairs, with everyone:

1)   gazing inattentively out the window while chattering teeth (not because of the chill in the air, but because of the Scatterfolks’ constant, if not RELENTLESS, desire for amusement. Even if that amusement is dental percussion.)

OR

2) wondering if they should’ve set their bid limit higher on the $$Genuine Black Forest cuckoo clock with 3-day winding mechanism$$$ about to go off in 23 minutes on eBay.

And, despite being so impossibly AMPED about finally addressing this scatterbrainedness, it’s likely we’d ditch the whole drag at Scatterbrains Anonymous with the suggsetion:

“Myeh! How’s about we go hire a bouncy castle?”

Scatterbrains.

We took a stand against Scatterbrainedness about a year ago and tried to get sensible. I don’t know, something to do with the kids and just a need to cook dinner every night instead of eating cereal … and buy things like fresh fruit, milk, and bread  because it is PRACTICAL and NECESSARY rather than aesthetically pleasing and/or highly collectible and of limited edition.

We are trying hard and making lots of good decisions. I think. Everything has changed. Before the beautiful childrens came along, it didn’t matter if we were sillier than pork chops, but now it very much does matter.

So …

Right now, we are about to sell our house. The one we lived in for five months before skipping town and heading for the oranges.

Converse to our nature, we have decided to hire someone for their learned advice in this process, rather than our follow hunches, which are imbued with as much hunch-like whimsy as Disney’s re-telling of the Hunchback of Notre Dame.

Yeah, we found A. Dude otherwise known as a vendor’s advocate. Apparently he keeps real estate agents honest (pfft!) and will act on our behalf when we sell the property as a go-between guy. Of course a fee is involved, but it’s a reasonable one. We need this as:

1)   We are not in Melbourne to sell the property.

And

2)   We’re scatterbrains and would probably jump the gun, pull the plug, fly the coop, throw the baby out with the bathwater, or some alternative tried and true euphemism in the whole selling process.

We also need to buy a house. This is where things get troublesome. I have moved house 19 times in 16 years (could be more, I just got bored counting them) and:

This.

Is.

The.

Final.

Time.

There will be no rental properties in between us and the house we decide to buy.

Repeat mantra.

So the Dude guy is also a buyer’s advocate. This means he will help act on our behalf when buying the next property.

He asked us for a brief of what type of house we want, with the line “You mightn’t have a clear idea of this” which we found a hoot.

YEEHEEHEHEHE! AS IF!

You see, for scatterbrains, we have a finely honed between-the-cross-hairs understanding of PRECISELY what we want.

For inspiration, I very nearly sent him You Tube links to three of my favourite films:

North by Northwest

The Party

and

Mon Oncle

But instead wrote a clear brief in bullet points, with links to photographs of highly aspirational versions of what we’ll probably get. … please forward me your address for the housewarming when Tim and I and les infants move into “fibro shack with potential”.

To ward off frightening renovations, where modernized kitchens resemble luxury car showrooms with all that granite and gloss (I stole that from someone, but whoever said it had it down pat), I wrote:

Hey advocate dude,

Original kitchens with yellow laminex is fine. So long as it was stylishly executed in the first place, and true to the original form of the house.

YES, I cringed as I wrote it. But, well, I mean it, man.

Anyone who has seen my crockery collection which my mate Loony once referred to as “The stuff my dad had in his work’s tea room in 1982” will understand.

And, just as I’m about to post this, I’ve been told I left the milk in the laundry.

Vale le Scatterbrain.

Dancin’ yeah

Christ!

If you had’ve seen us two lumps of wood thudding, trodding, and heffalumping our way around the Greek Orthodox Hall tonight in attempts to do the waltz and foxtrot, you would’ve wondered:

What! How’d those ungainly goons get their freak on enough to produce those two beautiful twinlets being babysat at home right now, let alone put one foot in front of the other and walk down motherf***ing street all these years?!?

No, really. You would’ve thought PRECISELY that, little asterisked bits and all.

For you see, it seems there are people who can dance in this world.  If you don’t believe me, here’s a definitive list.

* Fred and Ginger.

* Gene Kelly.

* John Travolta.

* Christopher Walken.

* MC Hammer.

* The Fraggles in the opening of Fraggle Rock.

* That horrific dancing baby on Ally McBeal that still gives me nighmares even though I never watched an episode of that show in my life.

And then there’s Tim and I.

The people in the world who can’t dance.

Much.

Unless you count the Nutbush, Heel-and-Toe-Polka, and assorted attempts at the ‘running man’ (if in the right sort of environment).

But, with our weekly lessons, this will change. As will the fact that our dance instructor kept calling me “Leanne”.

It got past the point of correcting her. And she was being so lovely, repeating my name (or Leanne’s), every time I needed to step.

Back two, Leanne. Side, Leanne. Together, Leanne. Forward two, Leanne.

You get the picture!

I started panicking and wondering if I’d need to be known as “Leanne” for my whole dancing career.

“Um, Samone,” I said a few times, possibly twenty, as did Tim. He even used sentences like

“SAMONE! STOP STEPPING ON MY FREAKIN’ TOES!”

But the poor woman was too distacted by us jerking around the parquetry flooring like a stop-motion plasticine Godzilla (dubbed ‘Leanne’ in the subtitles) hatching from a giant Play-doh egg.

Next week, I will have to say my real name, up front.

Or turn up with a nametag:

Samone! Samone! SAMONE!

That said, I probably should be dancing under an alias.

Le(anne) end.

And a happy new …

When I was a kid, my smile would beam for MILES (so much it had to hitchhike a ride back home to where my face was) whenever I sang the song:

We Wish You a Merry Christmas!

We Wish You a Merry Christmas!

We WISH You a Merry Christmas!

And a HAPPY NEW JEER!

God I loved that song, complete with my childhood speech impediment.

And, like I said, wrongly:

I wish YOU a happy new jeer.

Whether your new year’s eve is a wild WAHOOOOO! or you prefer to have it slip by without a beat, I hope that 2010, for you, is as rad as I intend mine to be.

Here’s a rundown of new year’s eves as I remember them since 1992. Before then, I was at home in my pyjamas watching music videos on Rage. I still consider these, with remote control poised to hit RECORD, the best new year’s of my life.

92: Mildura. Drunk at cricket festival (WHY????). Leapt on back of former boyfriend and screamed BUT I LOVE YOOOOOU! Kissed his best friend instead. Urgh!

93: Mildura. No memories other than an awful nightclub and walking home eating chips with tomato sauce at 3am. Urgh!

94: North Fitzroy. Raucous in the city with Tim. We took a photo of ourselves on Polaroid film that didn’t develop properly, but we could see shadows of our faces. Fun!

95: East St Kilda. No memory whatsoever of this. A party? I am assuming a disappointing one. Uncertain!

96: Glen Iris. Went to Bingo Hall at Chadstone for a laugh. Went home and got awfully stoned and woke up sometime the next day in a single bed in the spare bedroom (with Tim). Fun!

97: Port Douglas on holidays. Drank port wine and dodged cane toads. Fun!

98: Las Vegas. Got married in drive-thru. Big fun!

99: Port Melbourne. Waited for world to end. Hosted small but fun party. Bad bleach job made me dye hair pink (urgh, hideous DORK!). Watched fireworks from our ritzy balcony. Fun!

2000: East Brunswick. Watched Roman Holiday on projector screen and ate snacks. Ran around the house and street in wild partying fervour for hours and hours. Went to sleep at 7 am. Big fun!

2001: East Brunswick. Hosted great house party. Friend required stitches to face after accident on cushion and floor and attempt to ’surf’. Ha ha! Oh, I mean, terrible. Big fun!

2002: Bangkok. City congested, freaked out, bad mood, watched fireworks behind drapes in hotel room. Urgh!

2003: New York City. Times Square under helicopters with machine guns. Exhilirating but frightening. Urgh! AND Fun!

2004: Tokyo. Drinking schnapps in our tiny apartment. Cold!

2005: London. Sad and lonely at a party I wasn’t invited to. Someone set fireworks off inside. Mope!

2006: Chiang Mai. Happy. Released paper lanterns into the sky from hotel rooftop. Nice!

2007: Melbourne city. Riverfront watching fireworks. Didn’t drink as I suspected I was preggers. Boring!

2008: Clifton Hill. Asleep by 9pm. Woken by babies multiple times. Listened to fireworks and street revellers from bed. Tired!

And, in this rich, joyous, disappointing, and all things in between tapestry of new year’s eves past, THIS Happy New Jeer will be celebrated on the PS Mundoo.

Yes, Tim and I will be faring the brown waters of the Murray River on a restored paddlesteamer.

Promised is a carvery, music, coffee and tea, and dessert.

And how, tomorrow, might I assess this new year’s eve, if I was to sum it up in one simple exclamation mark?

One thing’s for sure:

TOOT! TOOT!

Samone xx

Back from our holidays … ready for the holidays

Sydney, eh?

Well, we just got back last night.

A good time was had by all, even little Jasper who got his thumb stuck in a door I slammed shut moments before we were to leave for the airport.

BIG, BIG, OUCH!

OH! How my poor little darling howled. And how Tim and I screamed! Little Saffron was the calmest of the lot, handing Jasper iceblocks and tottering around quietly while we wigged out.

It was terrible.

We rushed him to the Children’s Hospital after applying ice packs and Panadol and they promptly x-rayed his big purple thumb. It looked just like that one that kid stuck in a pudding digging round for a plumb in that old nursery rhyme. What’s it called again?

Thumbelina?

Tom Thumb?

Thumbs up for the Greedy Puddin’ Kid With The Big Ol’ Purple Thumb?

Whatever. You know the one.

As a result, we missed our plane, and … whatever, lots of boring details ensue, but we got home alright. Eventually.

Most importantly of all, Jasper was alright and still loves me, even though it was all my fault for being a door slammer.

OTHER HIGHLY INTERESTING NEWS:

I am tanned for the first time in my life, thanks to a spray nozzle in a shopping centre. I am an interesting shade of bronzed orange.

Brorange, even.

For the first two day-glo brorange days, I looked a little like I was roaming the Sydney streets looking for my Oompa Loompa brethren, but also fitted in well with many of the similarly brorange locals. OH YES! I forgot to mention I got my teeth Zoomed a month or so ago.

VERDICT ON  IN-CHAIR TEETH-WHITENING PRACTISES:  Now that I’m brown brorange, bloody hell they’re white those toothy pegs of mine!

Through the fishing trawler F.V. Friendliness that can oft-times be the internets (as opposed to its sister ship, the F.V. Creepiness, also bobbing about the high seas of the interwebs), I organized a pop-up playgroup with Sarah and Patrick and Dani and Ferg, whom I met right here, on this and previous blogs. We all hung out in Bronte playground and a good time was had by all in the sandpit.

My kids promptly went back to the holiday rental to prove they now knew how to climb after observing Fergus and Patrick on the jungle gym. I like the idea of pop-up playgroups round town. Kinda like a flash-mob phenomenon for the next decade. Perhaps when I’m back in Melbourne town for goods I’ll start organizing some. I am envisaging the advertisements for it now.

Otherwise, just hung out with our friends Sam and Julie. It was great. Tim and I went out a couple of nights, including our favourite place in Sydney (cos we’d been there twice before and don’t know that many places in Sydney, frankly), which is a Thai fusion restaurant called Longrain in Surry Hills.

Only holiday downer (aside from the thumb incident) was the house we stayed in.

Big fizzer.

We had to go out to buy a bottle of Nilodour to quench the stench of, oh, 100 years of rising damp.

And hire new baby equipment as the broken cots supplied looked like booby-traps in waiting. Now really, if you’re going to advertise your house as a holiday rental, it is highly unreasonable to ONLY advertise the parts that have been renovated (albeit badly, borderline themed – if the theme was ‘dodgy 90s renovations’ – and possibly as part of a show like Changing Rooms) 10 years previous.

You know, it’s quite mean-natured to supply grotty once-were-white linen and pancake-flat pillows and grimy cutlery and crockery, PLUS throwing in a weirdie neighbour who surreptitiously PHOTOGRAPHED us as we loaded our kids in the car after telling us off once for slamming the front door (which actually closed in a gust. No thumbs involved).

Blah.

Next stop, Christmas!

Even though I have mouth ulcers and inflamed tastebuds (I honestly didn’t know you could get those) from eating loads of chocolate, gelati and absolute junk for a week. I really feel like living on water and leaves for a bit. So, I’m a bit fatter and spottier, but gosh I’m brorange.

I hope you all have a lovely one.

P.S. Made two celebrity sightings in one day in Clovelly.

1) Jeremy Sims, actor, in our favourite children’s store we usually buy online from (Jasper tried to hug his legs), and

2) Shane Warne, former international cricketer and unfortunate text messager, running on the beach. Wasn’t 100% sure about Shane. And who is, really? But I’m not talking about his dubious character, more so whether or not it was actually The Warne. Probably need to consult website Where’s Warney? to clarify if he was actually in those parts or if it was a Warne-a-like.

On the ‘Book

So I joined Facebook about a year ago just after the kids were born and kept the account secret and inaccessible. NOW, I have launched onto it with only the unbridled dork enthusiasm someone can muster when they bandwagon any old craze that everyone else cooled off on.

Ages ago.

Facebook! It’s like, you can see what everyone you ever knew is DOING. And they can see what you’re DOING. All on one screen. And it’s totally futuristic. Like the new world order. Like being Captain Kirk swashbuckling the Starship Enterprise down the Information Superhighway, giving a big howdy-doo to HAL and his space odyssey.

Yes. That sort of enthusiasm.

Kinda like when I finally saw every episode of Twin Peaks in one, crazy, David Lynch mind-melt (in 2006 in London. I attended a hideous TV marathon that lasted 36 hours or something) and got the fear of god into me about the character BOB. As in, barely being able to get up to go to the loo in the evening, lest he be hiding behind the door. I was seriously BOB-O-PHOBIC. Anyone I mentioned it to was like:

“BOB? Yeah, I remember thinking he was creepy. In nineteen-ninety-one. I would try to get thoughts of him out of my head by listening to C&C Music Factory on my Walkman.”

…they would say.

(And why was BOB always written in caps?)

Yee!

BOB!

Why did I ever mention him? Now I’m totally freaking and it’s 9.24 am.

Is he

under

the.

desk?

Tim and I have come up with a gnarly business idea that exploits uses Facebook, possibly, so we thought we should see how it actually WORKS. I’m never much one for empirical research.

I have something like 16 friends on there, which is fine by me. Most of my usual posse are conscientious objectors to Facebook and social networking, like I was until yesterday.

I still can’t quite work it out, but I think the object is to have as many friends as possible.

Like primary school.

While I am, of course, winsome and charming, my less sunshiney side is shy, reclusive, self absorbed and, above all, I hate seeming like a keen been, so probably won’t go seeking anyone out unless I’m almost certain they’ll friend me back.

Or not think I was weird for friending them in the FIRST place.

What! You’ve got 16 friends and you friended ME?

Oh the angst!

But it’s an exciting angst, still.

Friend me if you wanna.

Unless you’re BOB.

Cool as especially cool cucumbers

So the kids were so astonishingly international jet-set about the whole darned flying thing, I’m surprised they didn’t bust out a couple of LV Monogram Vernis portmanteaus at the check-in counter.

Carry-on luggage marked Saffron & Jasper

For the entire flight to Melbourne and back (cos that’s where we went, briefly), they kicked back and chillaxed. Jasper even pointed out some clouds to me, and, bless him, catnapped for some of the way. Saffron was a bit more of a wiggle worm, as she tends to be, but was still pretty laissez faire about the whole shebang … although she did find throwing maracas down the aisle as we were making our descent tres amusing.

Yes, we took maracas on a plane.

We take maracas everywhere.

The good thing about flying out of Mildura is that the airport is tiny, unlike many airports, such as Suvarnabhumi Airport in Bangkok, Thailand (for instance).

Mildura Airport, Mildura (tiny)

Suvarnabhumi Airport, Bangkok (very, very big)

And, well, that’s about it, really.

Oh, aside from the fact you get to walk on the tarmac and feel like one of the Beatles circa 1964.

But the especially great thing about flying out of a country town where, by and large, people are a little more relaxed, is when you turn up to the airport 20 minutes before the flight leaves, and even though the flight is marked CLOSED at the counter, a passing Baggage Handler dude (it says so on his reflector vest) processes your ticket with barely a grumble.

He was authorized to do that.

I guess.

And, two minutes later, when you’re sitting in the departure lounge and marvelling at what a close shave it was, good thing we’re in Mildura, eh?, you wave at him driving a buggy past the window before loading all your gear onto the plane.

**

Anyway.

The trip to Melbourne was great. We saw a few chums including our newest chum darling baby Otto (newest offspring of my mate Loon a.k.a. Loony, formerly known as Jason Priestley, formerly known as Mr Chicken), caught up with Tim’s family, toured to Phillip Island to show my British mate Sammi the penguins, bought two pairs of cute shorts (my summer wardrobe done), ate Vietnamese, Japanese, and Greek because we could, and had a few meetings for work and stuff.

My hour-and-a-half-long work meeting ended abruptly when I looked at my watch and said:

“My! I’m really sorry, but my kids are waiting in the car. I have to go now.”

The publisher looked at me mortified, so I clarified:

“I mean, they’re in there with their dad. He would’ve let them out for a bit to walk around the shops and eat and stuff. But I do have to go. Now.”

Mother of the Year award.

Up, up!

Tomorrow, all four of us are boarding a jet plane for the first time.

Yeee!

Honestly, I am trying not to think too much about it, because no matter how much I mentally wrangle this enormously frightful thing of having two toddlers in a plane, it will turn out the way it does. However that will be.

And, unlike the other passengers who will be on that plane tomorrow, at least we know about the toddlers in a plane in advance.

Hee hee hee!

Thank goodness it’s just for an hour and a half …

But for now, vignettes!

**

Yesterday, Jasper splashed about in his little splashy pool chanting “LOVELY! LOVELY! LOVELY! LOVELY!” on a loop of loveliness, except it sounded a bit more like “LUBBLY! LUBBLY! LUBBLY! LUBBLY! LUBBLY!”

Oh, I am so happy to say the twinfants LOVE the world ‘love’.

Every time we say ‘I LOVE YOU!’, they smack their lips

*SMOOCH!*

Immediate cause and effect.

**

Saffron is now my go-to girl. I like to set her tasks.

“Saffron! Where is your hairbrush? Can I brush your hair, please? Where is the brush?”

She’ll trot over to her hairbrush and present it to me. Same with toothbrush.

Today, I mixed it up with:

“Maracas. Where are the maracas? I want to shake the maracas, please.”

She got me the maracas and even gave them a pre-shake, Peter-Allen-goes-to-Rio-style.

The repetitive keyword phrases have me sounding like a bizarre foreign language phrasebook.

Sometimes, however, there is a slight error in communications.

At dinner time, I said (in bizarre foreign language phrasebook mode meets Dr Seuss):

“Saffy, would you like some pear? Where is the pear? Is it there? The pear?”

She pointed at her head quizzically, and then started brushing her hair.

With a cracker biscuit.

The Subterranean of Suburbia (in parts)

PART ONE: THE RAMBLING BIT ABOUT THE TITLE

I once wrote an essay called “The Subterranean of Suburbia” for a cinema studies subject, back in the olden days. Actually, I think there was more to the title. The word ‘auteur’ was probably in it, too.

Regardless, I spent 2500 words talking about it. I remember one of the films was Muriel’s Wedding, and another was Sweetie, directed by Jane Campion.

The best line in the film Sweetie was when the character Sweetie (who was a loony) was nude and up a tree and hurling abuse at her father. I think she was also wearing warpaint.

“You’re an arsehole, daaaaad. Ya f-fin arsehole!” she shouted.

It was me and Tim’s catchphrase for years. And that’s all I can really recall.

But anyway, my title is wrong for this blog entry. It should be The Subterranean of Suburbia. There’s no ‘urb’ for ‘urban’ in Mildura, not really. It’s basically like one big outer suburb, that becomes fruit blocks (vineyards and orchards), that becomes scrubby bush, that becomes the desert.

PART TWO: THE BIT ABOUT US AND THE SPIDERS (NOT FROM MARS)

I hate to say it, but we are so very afraid of nature.

And this is about the closest we’ve got to nature, like real nature, since either of us moved out of home. And we’re scared.

This morning, around 7.30 am, the kids were playing outside before it got too hot. Tim moved the barbecue cover that was languishing, defeated, rumpled on the patio, not at all put to its only task of covering a barbecue, and out of that forlorn barbecue cover leapt a huge hairy black spider.

YEEEEE! screamed Tim.

FWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA! screamed I, as I managed to sweep both children up in my arms, Popeye style, and run to the farthest back corner of my yard.

KILL IT! KILL IT! KILL IT! I bellowed.

GET ME A SHOE! GET ME A SHOE! GET ME A SHOE! wailed Tim.

YES! BUT DON’T YOU TAKE YOUR EYES OFF IT! I warned, wide-eyed and shrill, desperately lurching my bemused children back to the house in search of a solid sole.

I never used to mind spiders, and certainly never went around braying for their blood, but now I am fearful. Mostly because of the children. Three weeks ago they were batting around a redback spider on a web like it was a game of swing-ball in our entrance hallway. We got the place fumigated.

If little people playing chicken with a deadly arachnid wasn’t the cause of my new-found loathing, it may well be that I never used to see spiders much in my urban prism, did I?

Much less fumigate them.

PART THREE: THE BIT ABOUT THE SNAKES

When we moved here, people kept yabbering on ominously about snakes in the summer.

Watch our for snakes in the summer, they would yabber, ominously.

They always come in to these parts, where there used to be vineyards.

Especially brown snakes.

And black snakes.

And tiger snakes.

The only type of snake not mentioned were Snakes on a Plane.

So, while I sip my tea on the patio and keep one watchful eye pinned for spiders near barbecues, the other is whirring round for snakes slithering past the Polynesian totem poles we stuck near the compost bin, to scare the mongrels off.

(For the purpose of what I’m writing here, that is. I think we really got them cos they were tiki-kooky, and hunkered in the back, faraway corner of the garden shop. It seemed the garden-shop owner was so grateful we weirdos from the city finally carted away what she’d resigned as dead stock, she gave them to us half price.)

PART FOUR: THE BIT ABOUT THE DEAD CAT THAT WASN’T REALLY A DEAD CAT. PLUS BONUS CUTE BABY PHOTO!

So anyway, this afternoon, we came home in 36-degree heat to have the garage smell like nasty death. The first thing I thought was

Oh Jesus, a cat came in here and DIED.

Just like that. This is how accustomed to nature and the cycle of life I am becoming. I am so blase that I blamed a fictitious dead feline for what was actually our second deep-freezer (the one kept in the garage) switching off sometime in the past fortnight.

We were smelling casserole, deader than usual.

Tim took the hideous spoiled meals out, and hosed it down. Saffron, who decided she didn’t want to sleep this afternoon, had a little birdie bath in one of the plastic drawers.

Birdie bath in the fridge drawer

PART FIVE: THE BIT ABOUT OUR NEIGHBOURS’ ASTROTURF-TAMING

Other bizarre Subterranean of Suburbia fact!

Our front lawn is actually astroturf.

Fake lawn.

Flawn.

Like the kind you find cute little porcelain piggies and lambsies dancing on in butcher’s shops. Remember, this is not by our design, as we’re renting.

However, our next door neighbours regularly water their astroturf.

To get the dirt off it.

I’ve also seen them vacuum it.

TRUE!

School’s in

Oh, listen.

We got a letter today advising us that the kids got into a school in Melbourne. So we kinda know where we’ll be living for a decade or so. This is good news for someone who is about as grounded as an (untethered) zeppelin.

I know, they just turned ONE. We were told to provide birth certificates, lest we be trying to enroll embryos (people do) or our pet budgie (would be fun to try).

One of my friends (unnamed, though she probably wouldn’t care, due to her valiantly rebellious nature) got expelled from that school, and another (Yoyo) says that the person she knows that went there became a drug dealer. Well, they didn’t put THAT person on the alumni!

Tomorrow, when I see Yoyo (who is visiting for my birthday on Monday, hooray!), I will ask:

But were they a GOOD drug dealer, Yoyo? Were they?

Education, it’s such a contentious issue, man. I am an advocate for both government and private, and whatever people choose. I went to a government school and turned out the honoured intellegentsia intelligentsia I AM with boundless degrees (two), and Tim, well, he went to fancy private schools and dropped out of university to play computer games for a living. Actually, I’m not sure who the chump is there.

So in a way, I think it’s all up to the kid and a bunch of other variables. I hope the biggest positive influence in my children’s life will be … well … ME.

Oh yeah, and the guy that got paid to play computer games for a while there.

In other educational news, I am going to Sydney to learn how to make SHOES next year. A master craftsman is teaching me for a couple of weeks in March. This is beyond exciting.

* Yes, I truly spelled ‘intelligentsia’ wrong there, and not for comedic effect. I am such a buffoon.